Dinos downed by league leader

The Carbon High Dinos brought their basketball show home last Wednesday night, but the homecoming wasn't all that much better than the road play they have had to face the last couple of weeks.

They lost the game to the Lehi Pioneers 63-51.

Lehi leads Region 8 in boys basketball with a glossy 4-0 record in league play and a 14-3 record overall. They are one of the top five teams in the 3A division in the state according to all the polls, so no one expected the Dinos to be able to defeat them.

But the Dinos surprised everyone by hanging tough with the Pioneers right until the end of the game when the kids from Utah County pulled it out.

Until then it was anyone's game.

In the first quarter the Dinos played the Pioneers extremely tough with the Wasatch Front team only pulling away to a one point lead, 10-9, in the first quarter. Carbon's defense looked very good and this probably gave the team a lot of confidence.

Lehi was able to score a little better in the second period putting through 17 points, but the Dinos were almost equal to the task as they threw in 14.

With the halftime score 27-23, the Carbon boys had to believe they could beat this highly rated team and when they came out in the third period, they played like it.

Tough defense on both sides kept the score down in the third quarter, but when the smoke cleared the teams had played it even with each putting 16 points through the net, leaving the score 43-39 going into the fourth period.

It was only then that Lehi started to pull away and it took a lot of effort for the Pioneers to do so. They were able to hold down the balance scoring attack that Carbon had exhibited during the period and then clamped on their own defensive pressure to bring the game to close, but Carbon, in the end was a tough opponent for the Pioneers. The Utah County team was able to manage 20 points in the quarter, while holding Carbon to 12.

The top scorer for the Dinos was Matt King who has improved his play all season and has returned from an early December hand injury quite well.

Carbon's next game will be in the Dino gym on Friday night against Delta at 7 p.m.